


Break up in the End

by Dracoduceus



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 00:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14883854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: Life is short; don’t stay angry with each other.Life is short; love and laugh often.For all of the time they had said it…somehow McCree was still surprised when everything went to shit.Funny how fate – how luck – works like that.





	Break up in the End

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song ["Break Up in the End" by Cole Swindell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhTulKznx_Y) which I heard while driving home from work yesterday. By the time I got home I had worked myself up into this mess.

McCree gasped as he sat up, cold and clammy with the sweat and fear from a nightmare. “Sorry,” he said out loud, reaching with a blind, shaking hand to stroke Hanzo’s cheek. “Bad dream.”

It was far from  _ just _ a bad dream but Hanzo didn’t call him on it, for which he was grateful. In truth it was something that probably required psychiatric help – which Angie couldn’t provide and he wasn’t about to ask Zenyatta – and perhaps even medication but McCree…would rather not.

“Don’t worry,” he mumbled into the stifling silence of their shared room. “It’s time for me to get up anyway.” He slid out of bed, careful not to disturb Hanzo, and shut off the alarm before it could ring. A quick shower washed off the sticky feeling of dried sweat and he got dressed quickly, careful again to not disturb Hanzo. “I’ll be back before you know it,” McCree said, his voice wavering as he looked down at the frame propped up against the pillow.

He swallowed a lump in his throat, swiped at the tears that still wanted to fall, and nearly ran out the door before he could linger too much on how much quieter, how much emptier the room seemed without Hanzo’s steady breaths, without the little wheeze he had when he inhaled because of a broken nose healed wrong.

But of course McCree dwelled on it; the flight to his upcoming mission was nearly six hours long.

As he sat aboard the _Orca_ , strapped into his jump seat, he thought back. They said that it was trauma – and it was – that meant that he was unable to remember the rest of the day.

He had remembered that morning: waking up next to Hanzo had been like something out of a romance novel. The golden rays of the morning sun had filtered in through a crack in the window that neither of them had gotten around to fixing, seeming to light the love of McCree’s life from behind like some kind of angel.

That morning, in that golden moment that was forever seared into McCree’s memory, he had finally gathered the sack to propose. With their backgrounds and their bounties they…well, they couldn’t  _ really _ marry but it was the thought that counted. They had talked about it a few times while they were drunk and pretended it hadn’t happened the next morning to save themselves the heartache.

They would have a big party; invite all of the Overwatch teams in. Winston would “marry” them because McCree still hadn’t quite forgiven the old guard. It would be a small ceremony. There would be an exchange of rings; probably an incredibly indecent and filthy kiss.

Afterwards there would be an enormous reception party with food and alcohol flowing freely. They would party late into the night and hope that Talon or the other monsters of the world would hold off for just one night more.

McCree still remembered the look in Hanzo’s eyes when he had proposed, his eyes sleepy and then electrified in the blink of an eye. “ _ Yes! _ ” he had nearly exclaimed and McCree had slid the ring on his finger. McCree gave him a chain as well so that the ring wouldn’t interfere with his precious Storm Bow and they hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning until very late; until Winston had pounded on their door and demanded to know why they weren’t in the hangar.

Still giddy, they had run hand-in-hand to the hangar with their gear and clambered on the shuttle.

Then it gets fuzzy. McCree, after long moments of introspection, thought that perhaps they had attempted to join the “mile-high club” but though he knows they’ve spoken about it (in public  _ and _ private), they wouldn’t have done that to poor Lena.

He remembers combat. Most importantly, he remembers singing, so giddy with the thought that  _ he was going to marry Hanzo _ that he couldn’t contain it. As he shot and danced through the field, through side streets and highways, through buildings singing, “ _ Yo sólo quiero darte un beso, y regalarte mis mañanas _ .”

When Soldier: 76 yelled at them to cut the chatter, McCree had only sung louder, “ _ Cantar para calmar tus miedos quiero que no te falte nada! _ ”

Everyone rolled their eyes but on a private line, Hanzo murmured, “Te amo, _ cowboy _ .”

So McCree had continued to belt out the Spanish lyrics while they escorted the payload down the street. D.Va, clomping along in her meka beside him, had thought it was adorable and still had the video she recorded of him. He danced as he reloaded and shot and because of all the on-screen deaths she couldn’t upload it to her fans but she insisted that despite all of the gore and violence it was adorable and incredibly sweet.

There was another gap in his memory. He vaguely remembered it becoming more and more difficult to sing and fight so he had stopped. Hanzo had called out positions of scouts and the occasional sniper (he had gotten all of them except one, except Widowmaker because they were more or less evenly matched and McCree used to say that she was his arch nemesis) and then he had yelled something into the comms that made McCree’s blood freeze.

For the life of him, McCree couldn’t remember what and no one would tell him; no one would give him access to the comms after he stopped singing.  _ It was for his own good _ , they had said with pitying looks.

They didn’t understand that he had wanted  _ to know _ ; to have that last bit of closure even if it was unhealthy. Perhaps he just wanted revenge but he told himself that he wanted to hear every last moment of Hanzo’s life that he could before the bomb went off.

He remembers most clearly hearing…whatever Hanzo had yelled and then turning at the muffled  _ THWUMP _ from a building a block behind them. D.Va had shielded him with her Meka but they were still covered in ash and dust, turned grey and black in an instant. McCree had been able to watch the building crumple and fall as if in slow-motion.

Sometimes he imagined he could see Hanzo’s body falling as well but he couldn’t tell if it was just his imagination trying to offer him what the real world couldn’t.

_ Life is short _ , they had often said together. In fact, that’s what McCree had first said to Hanzo when they fell into…well, the first kind of relationship they had.  _ Life is short; why not live a little? _

So they had sought each other out for drinks or to scratch a particular kind of itch. Soon that turned into a regular thing and then it turned into sleepovers and lazy morning sex. Even that evolved in time to dinners and nights together spent cuddling on the couch – sex or alcohol not involved.

_ Life is short; why not live a little? _ Hanzo had asked when they started “officially” dating and then they were late to their reservation. They made do, used to a life on the road, with takeout eaten while reclining in the bed of their borrowed truck.

They had said it to each other many times since then, enough that it almost became  _ I love you _ .

It became the motto of their relationship. They both knew they were incredibly lucky to live as long as they had, that given their current profession they could die at any moment.

_ Life is short; don’t stay angry with each other. _

_ Life is short; love and laugh often. _

For all of the time they had said it…somehow McCree was still surprised when everything went to shit.

Funny how fate – how luck – works like that.

He didn’t remember much after that – the explosion of the building that had been Hanzo’s perch remained seared in his memory, burning out all others. It concerned Angie and Zenyatta how little he remembered, but could you blame him?

D.Va told him later, in the incarnation of Hana Song who was softer than her soldier and gamer persona, told him more of what happened even if she had been ordered not to. Reaper had made an appearance as she carried him away from the blast, knowing that McCree would have gone running into the smoldering rubble.

She had wanted to do the same and it was easy to stop herself by stopping someone else from dying that way as well.

They had narrowly escaped Reaper, McCree firing over the shoulders of her Meka at anything that had the Talon insignia. She told him that he had been glowing the entire time, firing Deadeye as fast and often as Soldier: 76’s tactical visor. They had been terrified that he would blind or kill himself as the toll that Deadeye took ate at his body but he had somehow survived.

It was a pity.

Hana told him that they were approached by Doomfist as McCree was flagging. She had been terrified, unsure of how to defend the both of them but he appeared ( _ appeared _ ) to be alone. Though she refused to tell him what he had said, McCree could make a guess.

She  _ did _ tell him that she had been terrified when McCree had flung his gun, had  _ charged at Doomfist _ armed with nothing but his despair. Her Meka was almost damaged beyond function – she had almost had to bail out – when she took the charged strike meant for McCree and had whisked him away.

That explained why no one gave him Peacekeeper.

It was one of many reasons.

The stay he had been forced to endure in Medical upon their return let it sink in. If Hanzo had been there, he would have visited McCree; would have been a constant presence. He would sneak in food and booze, would sit beside him until the healers kicked him out. In the dead of night, he would return to sleep beside McCree, their hands tangled.

Hanzo would have sat beside him while Angie talked about his injuries and the toll the constant use of Deadeye had taken on him; would have made light of it, clicking his tongue derisively despite the nervous, white-knuckled grip he kept on McCree’s fingers. When Angie wandered off, Hanzo would have called him an idiot, a foolish cowboy that  _ just had _ to rush in. But despite his fear-charged words his kisses would be gentle and his fingers as well as he combed McCree’s hair and beard.

But Hanzo was not here and McCree was alone.

That wasn’t fair.  _ Hana _ was there, injured while making sure that McCree escaped alive. She sat beside him, a ball of misery and despair almost as much as McCree was.

When he was finally released, he found the Watchpoint in similar spirits. They all knew – Ana said it often enough – that everyone died; they  _ killed _ on an almost regular basis and yet…

Even though Hanzo was Genji’s surly brother, the same one that had tried to kill him, he was one of them…and now he was gone. No one realized what he had done for them until he wasn’t there. Little bits of cleaning, a solid rock of stability (though the irony that he was hardly stable himself wasn’t lost on anyone), a quiet presence when someone didn’t want to be alone.

Now there was a Hanzo-shaped hole in the Watchpoint and a ghost in their memories.

And Genji…Genji had been inconsolable to learn that his brother had died – another reason that McCree had no desire to seek out Zenyatta’s help for the omnic needed to give his student all of his attention.

It’s what Hanzo would have wanted.

A lump rose in his throat but the dark spiral his thoughts were leading him down was interrupted by the crackle of the intercom. “ _ Alright loves, _ ” Lena said brightly and McCree tried to cling to that optimism but it slipped through his fingers like fog. “ _ Our ETA is 0822 hours Hollywood time – that’s an hour and a half left! _ ” there was a crackle as she turned off the intercom. It crackled on again. “ _ You can move around, just be careful. I’ll let you know when you have to return to your seats! _ ” she turned the intercom off again.

With a groan, Reinhardt got to his feet while Brigitte teased him that he wasn’t as young as he used to be. They grabbed their shields and armor and gave them a final polish and inspection. Ana was inspecting her gear as well and checking her supply of biotic darts and grenades. Zenyatta sat beside her, his orbs spinning in slow arcs as they talked about the garden at Watchpoint.

McCree forced himself to do his own weapons and armor checks. He refused to be the weak chink in their armor that led to their death or injury, even if he didn’t much care for his own wellbeing anymore. The ring on a chain around his neck – his portion of their matching set – glittered out of the corner of his eyes as he yanked his chestplate on harder than necessary.

He didn’t like the feel of the replacement gun they got him. It wasn’t the same as Peacekeeper, didn’t have the same heft or sentimental value. Aside from his mental and physical health, one of the reasons it had taken him so long to return to active duty was getting used to the monstrosity in his hands.

On one hand McCree knew how to work all sorts of weapons – it had been drummed into him from Deadlock and Blackwatch – but…he didn’t have to  _ like _ it. How often had he missed the training dummies, expecting the butt of the gun to be longer, to have his signature spur? Or had the gun slip out of his hands when he went to draw simply because he wasn’t used to it being so  _ light _ ?

But those were just excuses and yet another bucket of dirt taken from the hole that was his heart. Losing Peacekeeper  _ and _ Hanzo all at once? To be honest, he was surprised he was still standing; but Justice wasn’t going to dispense itself and he thought that…well, Hanzo wasn’t much one for sitting around. If he were still around…

McCree swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. That was the worst part, he decided. He swung back and forth between expecting to see Hanzo there behind him or to see a message (“safe for work” or otherwise) on his phone  from him…and feeling the crushing realization that Hanzo wasn’t ever going to come back.

Athena had checked. There were no survivors of the building’s destruction and Hanzo’s tracker had been destroyed at the same time the bombs went off.

“Are you okay?” Ana asked him quietly, putting a hand on his wrist.

McCree swallowed hard. “No,” he told her just as quietly. “Ain’t never gonna be.” He cocked his pistol, checked his extra magazines of bullets, and sat back down. Ana offered him one of Zenyatta’s orbs and he accepted it, cradling it in both hands.

Even the warmth from whatever magic or biotics was in there couldn’t bring back the warmth of Hanzo leaning against his shoulder.

The intercom crackled as he continued to stare, unseeing, into the golden fires surrounding the orb. “ _ We’re beginning our approach, _ ” Lena announced. “ _ It seems like Talon got here first so we’re coming in hot. Get ready for a rough landing! _ ”

McCree returned Zenyatta’s orb to him and stood at the ready beside the ramp. Time to get to work.

* * *

He was hiding behind Reinhardt’s shield and reloading when he heard it.

Reinhardt’s protests fell on deaf ears as he charged out, scattering bullets and an empty magazine in his wake. “ _ Shield’s failing! _ ” Brigitte cried over the comms and McCree angled toward her, ducking around buildings and burned-out cars. “ _ Backup would be appreciated! _ ”

The sound came again as Reinhardt rocketed past to get to his squire. He didn’t even notice that Zenyatta lobbed an orb at him and that it clung to him by a sticky strand of golden fire as he broke ranks and chased the sound.

He drew his gun as he climbed a set of stairs. The retort of the revolver – a sound that he knew deep in his heart, a sound that he would recognize  _ anywhere _ – was louder here, echoing off the walls of an enclosed room.

Yanking the door open he ducked and rolled, dodging the three shots fanned at him. He jumped to his feet, bringing his pistol up to fire…and froze.

In a heartbeat he was disarmed, his good arm dislocated as he was forced to his knees. “You were right,” Hanzo said into the comms, his voice muffled slightly by the gray mask over the lower half of his face. Peacekeeper’s muzzle, hot from firing so many times, burned his chin and beard when it was used to tip his face up to stare into Hanzo’s red eyes. “He came running.”

Around his neck was a ring on a fine chain.

“Sweet pea,” McCree breathed, staring up at him. Smoke wreathed him – was something on fire? – and both arms were bared. One arm and both legs were prosthetic and McCree’s heart, what was left of it, cracked further. “Oh,  _ Hanzo _ .”

Hanzo tugged the covering over his face down. His smile had a cruel twist to it as he pulled Peacekeeper away from McCree’s chin and pressed it to his forehead instead. “I think you have about three options here, cowboy,” Hanzo said and cocked Peacekeeper as easily as if he had been doing it all his life. “Option one: you die here, simple as that. Option two: you join Talon as an agent and  _ maybe _ I can be convinced to give you back this lovely creature.” He wiggled the gun so that the spur on the butt jingled. It was caked in gore and a drop fell to splash on McCree’s chaps. “Option three: you join Talon...as my pet.”

McCree swallowed a lump in his throat.

“I have to say,” this new Hanzo murmured, blatantly looking him up and down, his red eyes lingering tellingly on McCree’s groin. “I very much like the look of you. ” He bared his teeth in a predatory grin and sang quietly, “ _Sólo quiero darte un beso._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies. 
> 
> This wasn't my best work and I'm not the most proud of it but the idea wouldn't let me go until I got it down. I'm sorry that I have subjected you to that. 
> 
> Thank you to Lyall_Lupa for helping me look for songs for McCree to sing while he went on a murderous rampage. The song he is singing is called [Darte un Beso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdOXnTbyk0g) by Prince Royce. 
> 
> Feel free to come and yell at me on my tumblr, [classywastelandbread](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com).
> 
> ~DC


End file.
